Page 1 of Night's Templar (Vampire Queen 13)

Chapter One

"For a member of a species that considers itself superior to all others, you spend an inordinate amount of time on your knees."

"None are superior to God. And on one's knees is where salvation and answers are found," Uthe responded.

His tormentor shifted in front of him. Though his head was bowed and eyes closed, Uthe felt the shadow of his presence. Either the Fae Lord was trying to be as disruptive as possible, or he was blocking the view of the horizon, where the sun was seconds from making an

appearance. Uthe could feel it, like the fires of Hell rising up to claim him.

He preferred to think Keldwyn's intent was to disturb his meditation, rather than shield him. The Fae being protective of him opened the door to thoughts Uthe didn't wish to have. What was behind that door already strained its hinges.

Why now? Why all of this now?

He banished that thought in a blink. One didn't question the Lord's designs and plan. One obeyed and served His Will.

"You are on your knees before me," Keldwyn pointed out.

"I am on my knees to God. You inserted yourself into the conversation. If there is justice, a lightning strike will reduce you to a smoking pile of fancy clothes by the time I open my eyes."

"I'm not certain if a lightning strike would be fatal to me," Keldwyn mused.

"If it was the hand of God, I'm certain it would be."

Keldwyn leaned over him, because silken strands of his long, thick hair brushed Uthe's neck. "I hate how you do this," the Fae said.

"No one asked you to watch." Uthe kept his own hair severely short, shearing it frequently. One of God's sheep.

"You know, Uthe is not really a name. It's a piece of a name, a connecting word, like 'the' or 'and.' Was it the noise your mother made when she pushed you out of the womb--oof--and the doctor misheard her?"

His mother. Uthe had never known her, though there was a time he'd wished he could lift the veils of his mind that hid the memory of being inside her. His father had never spoken of it, but Uthe was sure his sire had killed his human mother moments after his birth. He'd given Uthe first blood from his own vein.

He no longer wished for a memory of her. If a woman's emotions laced the womb of her growing child like the grasses of a bird's nest, his nest had been lined with terror, pain, despair. It had not been a place of safety or warmth, an echo of the Virgin Mary's love that St. Bernard had suggested was the resting place above all resting places.

There is no rest for the wicked.

He stiffened at that voice, smooth as a serpent's tongue. Concentrating so hard that perspiration trickled along his temple, he shut out the voices of the past, present, and his absurd future, to focus on the one thing that mattered. The sun crept out from the horizon, thinking itself a stealthy hunter. He was stealthier. The key was being alert to every passing second, every change in the air around him, in the feel of the earth below him.

But what if he wasn't? He usually used Keldwyn's buzzing around him as a beneficial test of his discipline, but these unexpected thoughts of his past could throw him off. There were so many things the kiss of sunlight would end. His death would stop them before they could come to fruition, a deep relief. Yet his ease was not an option, since there was one vital thing his death would leave undone.

How much longer would it take? Will it be too late?

Keldwyn straightened. Uthe tried to ignore the featherlike retreat of his hair along his nape. It was only marginally less difficult to do that than to dispel the unsettling vision Keldwyn had planted in his head--Uthe kneeling before him.

So many secrets were bound inside Uthe, layered like fossils in the earth. It should hardly take any effort to conceal his reaction to being on his knees in front of the male who always smelled of autumn leaves and pale sunlight. Fall was a transition season, from the life and birth of spring to the death signified by winter, endings. How apt.

Now. The fingers of flame closed over his skin. As always, his heartbeat and adrenaline surged, trying to push him into headlong flight, a base survival instinct. He held fast, forcing himself to calm, even as his skin felt like it was about to erupt. Then he moved.

He sprang from the kneeling position and was running, his vampire speed making him all but invisible to the human eye. He pushed himself to the limits of his endurance and beyond, legs scissoring across the ground, arms pumping, every muscle rippling in smooth motion. Off of the grassy knoll, through the short stint of woods, then across the meadow. He thought he could detect Keldwyn's scent around him, but it was autumn here, so he told himself that was what he smelled.

The thundering of his heart was like horses' hooves in a Templar cavalry charge, sending up plumes of gritty sand while the bright sun blinded him. His hand light on the reins, sword tight in his hand. The fluttering snap of the black and white beauseant, the screams of the dying. The touch of a grateful pilgrim's hand on his calf...

By the time he reached the manicured lawn, Uthe felt like he was inside a ball of fire. He accepted and endured, never losing sight of his goal, never losing control. Only a matter of seconds between life and death. All the will of God.

He shot across the threshold of the side entrance to the Savannah estate. It was a stone structure appended to the main house, an enclosed rock patio that provided a pleasant place in summer for those who wanted to enjoy the view of the side lawn and the forest beyond it. It also had a trap door that led to the underground rooms housing guest vampires, like himself. As he fell back against the cool wall, which enclosed him in shadows, a shard of sunlight speared the ground at the archway like an enemy lance, falling just short of its mark. Uthe narrowed his eyes, watching the spread of the light. Vampires could see the individual motes, threads, bands and bars of sunlight in a way humans couldn't. It was a language a vampire couldn't read for long, though, unless he wanted to burn out his retinas. He averted his eyes.

Keldwyn was leaning against the stone wall to his right as if he'd been there all along, waiting for him. While the Fae Lord had an exceptional ability to blend into his environment, such that he could seem to appear or disappear at will, he was also capable of a swiftness that surpassed even a vampire's.

"Would you like me to open the trap door?" Keldwyn asked pleasantly, though there was a sharpness to his onyx eyes that reminded Uthe of the sun's threat to wrap him up in flame.

"If you are planning to stay on this side of it after it closes."

It was always safest to keep Keldwyn in his peripheral vision, because gazing directly upon the Fae Lord could be as hazardous as staring at the sun. During Council meetings, he usually eschewed his assigned seat, wandering through the spacious chamber as the meeting was conducted. Despite his restless behavior, they'd learned they had his full attention, for Keldwyn wouldn't hesitate to interject a pertinent comment when needed, whether it was while he sat on the edge of the koi pond with its gurgling fountain or from a perch on one of the crisscrossed ceiling beams.

His preferred spot, however, was the stretch of wall behind Uthe's chair. It was an unexpected choice. At social gatherings, a vampire's servant would stand behind their Mistress or Master. Uthe's third marked servant, Mariela, was a quiet presence behind him at such events. Even if he could not see her, he always had a connection to her mind. He had no such connection to Keldwyn, yet he was as aware of the Fae's presence behind him during Council meetings as he was of his own servant's breath and blood.

Keldwyn was no servant. Not even in Uthe's imaginings, though he'd tried once or twice to put him there, with some very disturbing results.

He'd learned to treat his growing reaction to the Fae Lord as another challenge to his discipline and resolve. He compartmentalized his response, handling it the way he handled Council business. Steady, thoughtful, with an eye to short and long term results. No anger, always calm. No harmful passions.

To test that discipline and resolve now--or so he told himself--Uthe looked directly toward his troublesome companion.

The male was a temptation to any species. Lord Keldwyn, liaison to the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, first ever Fae liaison with the Vampire Council, was of high Fae birth. Years of exposure to perpetual vampire beauty should have made Uthe immune to a handsome face, but a high Fae eclipsed even a vampire's appeal, because their beauty was mixed with an unearthly quality that was unsettling, dangerous, irresistible. Keldwyn's face and form were a blatant reason for every cautionary tale about crossing into the Fae world and never being heard from again.

His

nose and cheekbones were like honed blades, his black hair thick as a curtain. It fell to his waist, tangling over his arms when loose. The pointed tips of his ears parted the flowing strands, though sometimes they were concealed, like when he leaned over a table to study a document, his long-fingered hands braced on the wooden surface. Or if he tilted his head up to look through the domed ceiling of the Council chambers to study the moon and stars through the skylight.

His body was just as distracting. Right now his arms were crossed over his chest, which was broad and well developed despite his lean form.

A reaction to physical features was mere lust, easily dismissed. It was the deeper qualities that he sensed in Keldwyn, elements eluding definition in his soul, which tangled up Uthe's mind. The only thing that should be indefinable--that was indefinable, he corrected himself--was God. Curiosity was not a sin, but when his interest in those qualities heightened his awareness of Keldwyn's physical features, then there was a problem.

The introduction of Keldwyn as liaison to the Vampire Council had been an historic moment between two species who were sworn enemies. Lady Lyssa, the current Council head and last of the vampire royalty, a Queen of the long vanished Far East clan, had made that possible due to her half-Fae blood. As her right hand on the Council, Uthe knew he would have the most interaction with the male, beyond the Fae Lord's relationship with Lyssa herself, but Keldwyn had taken a disconcertingly keen interest in Uthe from the beginning. At first, Uthe had been amused. Of late, it had become a challenge to the core of who he was. He wasn't sure of Keldwyn's intent. But then, that was the nature of the Fae. Elusive, hard to pin down.

The thought produced an intriguing vision of pinning Keldwyn to a board like a butterfly by his stunning golden, red and yellow wings, which he mainly brought out for formal occasions, having the ability to summon or cloak them at will. Uthe thought of him like the surface of a lake, hinting at an array of concealed exotic wonders. All he had to do was step into the waters, let the cool currents take him forward, under...